All Blog Posts Tagged 'ebooks' (389)

          I’ve been contemplating the future of the author in today’s high technology society. What will become of us and the books we write? Will the paperback go the way of the compact disk and disappear forever? Will publishing houses dissolve into nonexistence the way most record labels have? Will a paperback…

As a self publisher I need a reliable process chain to produce perfectly typeset print pdfs and ebooks from one source. I hate to maintain different formats with different programs and source files. In this post I describe my personal single source multi channel publishing setup.…

          Nobody said it was going to be easy making a living as a writer. Nobody said it was always going to be fun. Nobody promised me that after spending twenty-plus years holed up in my office writing novels that anyone would ever read them. Nobody promised me anything would ever come of my writing, and yet I still do…

I’ve touched on this subject many times but it warrants repeating. Never pay someone to read and review one of your books. Paid reviewers give glowing reports on the books they read even if the books are terrible. Why? Because they want your repeat business. Would you pay someone a second time if they gave your book a bad review the first time? Of course…

I recently completed and published my tenth book. It took nearly fourteen months working at my computer from three to five hours a day. Seeing the book for sale worldwide is both exhilarating and relieving. I had planned to finish it while on my recent vacation but since I completed it a month ahead of schedule I found myself on vacation with nothing to write.

This has never happened before. I’ve always had a project that…

My computer went to the fluffy cloud from where there was no return and I had to sit back watching the things I had put out on the world wide web growing old, becoming outdated & crumbling. (on the odd occasion I managed to borrow the use of anothers device) This month I was given a band new laptop. Having returned to the old fashioned yet reliable writing process of pen & paper I now have plenty of new material to share.

Some of you will think me wrong, but I have…

When it comes to marketing and promoting your book nothing beats grassroots marketing and word-of-mouth promotion. That said, I’ve joined an exciting new online writers group devoted to paying it forward through various methods of promotion, including tweets, Facebook, and word-of-mouth promotion.

   Getting noticed above the massive flood of new books is hard, but the task becomes easier when authors help each other. That’s what this group…

I’ve been reading a lot of threads and forums lately dealing with the topic of marketing your book. It seems there are a lot of “newbies” out there in this relatively virgin explosion of indie publishing and many can’t understand why their books aren’t selling. When asked if these new authors market and promote their books most say yes, but complain that they have…

What a great day! First, this new 5-star review for DROP OUT.

***

5.0 out of 5 stars Inspiring,

By LisaC - See all my…

Well, after nearly exactly 15 months my latest book, THE END TIME is about to be birthed. The cover is complete, the blurb and pitch are complete, and I just sent all my material to Chris O'Byrne at Jetlaunch. Chris is the man who formats my manuscript for ever ereader imaginable and places the book on all the sell sites for me. Like my cover artist, Judy Bullard, I've used these same two people for all my ten published books. This gives my titles and format and consistent…

Though I’ve touched on this subject before on my blog I think it warrants repeating. I will never pay someone to read and review one of my books. Period! Most paid reviewers give glowing reviews on the books they read even if the book is not up to par. Why? Because they want your money and repeat business. Think about it. Would you pay someone a second…

          I’m often asked by media and friends how do I create my characters? At last count I have somewhere in the neighborhood of over one hundred spread over my nine published and three unpublished books. These characters have detailed histories and vivid personalities. Some are absolutely terrifying, some are…

After breaking contract with a prominent NY literary agency nearly four years ago to pursue the ebook/indie publishing revolution I can now confidently say I know what it takes to sell books. This revelation comes after spending thousands of dollars on every marketing and promotional tool, sponsorship, and gimmick available. I can say that although some of these applications yielded modest sales, nothing compares to the secret I’m about to reveal. So here it…

I read an article recently defining what it meant to be an Amazon bestselling author these days. Keep in mind this is an Amazon bestseller not a New York Times bestseller. The general rule is if your book sells between 150-500 copies in a twenty-four hour period its ranking can get low enough that it can be considered a bestseller.

That said, I am an Amazon bestselling author three times this year. Once in…

I’ve been doing a lot of marketing/promotion lately for my books and have come up with a “must-be-on” list for writers who want to promote their books. These website provide free services that can really get your books noticed. There are many other sites out there but I highly recommend you concentrate your marketing efforts on these. If you check their…

The Ereader News Today http://ereadernewstoday.com/more-bargain-and-free-books-for-2-21-14/6741206/ feature yielded very nice results and I sold enough copies of DROP OUT to hit below 1,500 ranking in the entire Kindle store yesterday. I highly recommend all authors give this site a try. It…

Today is the day of my Eareader News Today promo spot. Last time ENT featured my book it went to #176 in the entire Kindle paid store and briefly #1 in the romantic suspense department. Of course, that was only for a few hours. But what a thrill.

   Here is the link to the site. Please check it out and I urge all authors to submit their books to ENT. They only get a small percentage of your sales and make no money if your book doesn’t sell through…

My father always told me that it's okay to make mistakes, it's how you learn. Well, I'm about to tell you the mistakes I've made while marketing and promoting my books so that you don't have to go through the same mistakes when you market and promote your own books. I'll put them in list form so it's easier to digest.…

When you’re as active on writer’s sites as I am you occasionally receive what I like to call a little gift from the creative spirit. Case in point, yesterday when I received notice that one of my posts on Kindle Direct Publishing forum was tweeted by them.

https://twitter.com/AmazonKDP/status/432538128570523648

I…

In the nearly three years that my blog ALWAYS WRITING  http://www.neilostroff.blogspot.com  has been active, I’ve seen my following grow and my hit counter exceed 250,000. I’ve tried to provide valuable writing and publishing advice based on my own trials,…